The moment Michael felt the intense surge of energy flooding his body, he couldnât help but feel grateful heâd prepared a secure space for his real body before advancing.
The memory of his previous advancementâwhen heâd nearly endangered his familyâstill haunted him. If not for Teacher Brian being nearby to intervene, things might have ended in disaster.
As his power surged, so too did his influence on the surrounding environment.
At Rank 1, the change had been minimal. At Rank 2, the increase in strength should be more pronouncedâbut even then, it shouldnât have reached the scale he was now experiencing.
The truth was simple: Michael was not normal.
Most Awakened couldnât match a true Rank 2 while still being in rank 1.
Because after all, youâre special and Iâm also special, whatâs stopping me from having more power?
It wasnât rare to have extremely powerful awakeners that could fight a rank above them but the numbers were few as all awakeners shared the same advantage so standing could prove difficult.
Most rank 1s couldnât beat a rank 2.
But Michael? He had already surpassed that benchmark before even reaching this stage.
He was a true outlier.
And as the overwhelming tide of power reached its peak, Michaelâs consciousness began to slipâjust like it had during his first rank advancement.
But this time, even as his awareness faded, the process didnât stop.
His body continued its transformation.
The vine dome trembled.
As Michaelâs consciousness slipped away, the very air within the dome thickenedâsaturated with mana so dense it shimmered faintly like mist. A wave of raw, primal energy pulsed outward from his body, causing the ground to vibrate and the vines overhead to stretch taut as if nature itself was reacting to the phenomenon.
Mana bloomed like wildfire.
It wasnât just a surge. It was an eruption.
The grass beneath Michael blackened in a perfect circle. If Michael had undergone this advancement anywhere else, the destruction would have been immediate.
But he wasnât alone.
One hundred and one undead stood around himâsilent, motionless, and utterly devoted. All Rank 2. All radiating power of their own.
And so, the mana storm did not consume the dome.
The evolved undead weathered the surge with ease, their bodies absorbing the ambient pressure as if it were little more than a breeze.
They didnât need to be told what to do.
This was their purpose.
To protect him.
To wait.
And so they did.
In a circle of perfect formation, they formed a defensive perimeter, a wall of silence and death. Should any creatureâeven a monster kingâstumble into this space now, they would not survive a second.
Because something was changing at the center.
Michaelâs body hovered slightly off the ground, lifted by the unseen currents of mana spiraling from within him. His veins glowed faintly with threads of blue and violet light.
The transformation had begun.
Bones within his body creaked as they strengthened. Mana pathways expanded, then expanded again
System messages flickered across the empty airâseen by none.
Outside the dome, the forest grew eerily still. Birds flew higher. Even mana-rich insectsânormally drawn to surging energyâvanished.
And at the center of it all... Michael floated. Still unconscious. Still changing.
Time lost meaning.
It could have been minutes. It could have been hours.
But the moment his eyes finally snapped open, glowing faintly like cold fire beneath storm clouds, a new power had taken root.
Michael exhaled slowly and sat up from the ground.
Michael exhaled slowly and sat up from the ground.
The world felt different.
Sharper. Quieter. Louder. All at once.
Everything was heightened.
He flexed his fingers slowly, curling them into fists.
The strength in his body was immenseâalmost overwhelming. He could feel it coiled beneath his skin like a barely restrained storm. It wasnât just physical power, either.
Michael let out a breathless laugh, though it sounded more like a disbelieving scoff.
"...This is insane."
Heâd felt strong before. When he evolved his undead and received stat feedback, the boost had been noticeable, even intoxicating. But thisâthis was on another level entirely.
Back then, he hadnât even had time to properly adjust.
A part of him smiled warily.
"I need to be careful," he muttered under his breath.
He hadnât even checked what his advancement had
actually
done yet.
Michael cracked his neck, releasing a low sigh of tension. He still needed to adjust, to refine the control over this newfound strength, but he couldnât deny the pride stirring in his chest.
This was growth.
Real, undeniable, irreversible growth.
âStatus.â
*****
[ Name: Michael Norman ]
[ Class: Master Necromancer ]
[ Level: 40 ]
[Strength: 313.25 {+177.5}]
[Agility: 331.41 {+184.}]
[Constitution: 369.32 {+178.2}]
[Intelligence: 443.22 {+215.9}]
[Attribute Points: 150 ]
[ Skills: Undead Summoning, Undead Revival, Detect, Basic Shot, Share Senses, Spearmanship, Acid Shot, Bone Spear, Slow Curse, Blind Curse, Bone Armour, Corpse Explosion, Acid Ball, Mana Arrow, Death Ray, Basic Martial Art.......]
[ Talent: Infinite Evolution ]
[ Class Skill: Contract Slot {115/250} ]
[ Gift: Mark of Origin ]
[ Title: First in history, Outliner ]
*******
The first thing Michael noticed after sitting up was his level and stats.
His level had jumpedâfifteen levels, just like the reward from his advancement quest had promised.
"Level 40..." he muttered, blinking.
He doubted there were many of his peers even close to this. In sheer level alone, he might already be in the top one percent. But even that wasnât what made his heart pound.
It was his stats.
They were monstrous.
These werenât the stats of a fresh Rank 2 Awakened. Hell, they didnât even feel like they belonged to someone at level 40. Noâthis was something else entirely.
Michael clenched his fist slowly, feeling the raw strength pulsing beneath his skin.
He gained stats in four ways:
Oneânatural class and race-based gains with each level up.
Twoâattribute points rewarded levelling up.
Threeâthrough steady cultivation over time.
And fourâthe most ridiculous of them all: feedback from his undead.
Thanks to his talent and sheer number of high-quality undead, the feedback loop from their evolution gave him stat gains most Awakened couldnât even dream of. Every time one of his undead evolved, a portion of their power cycled back into him. And he had over a hundred Rank 2 undead.
That feedback alone made Michaelâs stat growth absurd.
But that wasnât even the biggest cheat.
His raceâHigh Human.